Resurrecting Ancient Painting Methods

This adventure began more than thirty years ago when I was first introduced to encaustic materials by Ted Schnorr, a studio neighbor.  He was looking for cheap art supplies so that he could spend his time painting rather than earning money as a janitor.  He was brilliant.  He read a short chapter on encaustic materials in “The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques” by Ralph Mayer; melt wax

I use artist grade pigments and pure beeswax to make crayons.  Trying to find a way to get softer crayons I did some experiments with adding linseed oil but it did not work.  

After reading some articles published by art history scientists working on the Fayum Mummy portraits I decided to try adding a small amount of kaolin clay to the hot mixture of wax and pigments.  The result was fabulous.  The kaolin did not interfere with the color and it softened the crayons enough to make them more easily workab

Technically, encaustic is rather difficult to use but there is no comparison to the surface quality, depth of color and luminosity.  

To read more about my adventures resurrecting this ancient painting medium, please see the book available on Amazon.

Ancient Art Materials.  (Soon to be published).